Now this is a retaliatory security check!
 

Ok so it relates to a cruise liner but it is still applicable.


Maybe I shouldn't post it if it gives other like minded petty twits ideas? :p

I somehow doubt that Russia would deter tourism in Russia as a means of getting back at the west. No doubt they like tourist revenue just as much as anyone else does.

When the new Carnival ship splendor was in port there they did the same thing. They had two customs guys for the whole ship.

The loss of billions in tourist revenue hasn't stopped the USA from engaging in petty harassment of visitors. No reason to think the Russians are significantly less moronic.

Holding up traffic at a border is a time honored way of inconveniencing the citizens and or businesses of a target nation. Everyone does it.

Think the French has an easy time of it after refusing to become one of the "willing"? Heck, we even renamed French Fries! ;)

wasnt it the French who helped the US (before it was the US) throw us horrible English out a couple of hundred years ago? :D:D

Yes, but gratitude is short lived, innit? The feeling in some quarters of this country is that the French owed their military support in Iraq because of the liberation of France in WW II - which many Americans think was accomplished by America alone. ;)

Back in the InTourist days, the Soviets did everything possible to deter tourism. You had to pay in advance to InTourist, so once they had your $$, the Soviets did everything possible to keep from delivering anything you paid for.

You want to see the museum? Closed today, Comrade; how about another stadium tour instead? What, you want breakfast? Sorry, Comrade, the restaurant is closed for cleaning, and we have to leave now if you want to see that stadium!

Etc. :D

You can't tell me that wasn't done to get back at the west, and it didn't hurt the money they took in, either.

I had many, many enjoyable experiences in the old Soviet Union over many years. I don't recognise the place you are describing. And it was never very expensive either, unlike now.

The french would be eating Kraut and Sausage right now if it wasn't for the US.

Are people forgetting that Georgia orginally asked Russia to be there as peace keeping force since about 90% of Georgia are Russian ( a lot forced to be in Georgia when the borders where changed way back when ) and what do people expect when Georgia starts shooting at Russian planes.

Robert Heinlein wrote about this, the essay appears in Expanded Universe. He and his wife at the time were also unfortunate to be in the USSR when that spy plane was shot down. A very nervous time for any US citizen in the USSR.

It wasn't just the west. Even natives had to use InTourist to travel, and internal passports to boot -- just like the ones Idiot Boy and Skeletor want to foist off on us.

I think a lot of the garbage travellers face out there is a result of the workings of bureaucracy, rather than of geopolitics. This seems to be such a case.

And Americans would be residing in the 11th province if it wasn't for the French :p

Yes, and they probably would have been forced to learn english :)

This is Bollocks! I went to the USSR on a school trip at the height of the cold war and frankly it was one of the most interesting trips I had ever taken. It cerainly beat yet another two week mind numbing trip to america to watch the ever expanding waistlines